Keeping Up The Act
by theoriginalmcgoo
Summary: Spencer Hastings hasn't always been such a good girl. Spencer-centric.


A/N: A kind of crossover between PLL and Unspoken (a lesbian short which you can find on youtube) because both feature my girl Troian and just feed my headcanon.

Spencer Hastings has the perfect child, model student act down. She's been playing it so perfectly for so long, that it's not much of an act anymore; more of a lifestyle. She's kept the past buried so well, that sometimes she forgets what she came from, who she used to be.

It's things like Emily coming out that jog her memory.

The memory of a time when she was honest enough with herself to know that she's just like Emily.

Occasionally she'll hear the name, she'll hear "Gabby" shouted at a child in the park, or across the mall and she'll flinch a little. She's subtle about it, so nobody questions it, except sometimes she'll see Aria stare at her for too long afterwards, like she's trying to will all her secrets into the open.

Spencer won't crack though. She'll keep up the facade if it kills her.

One person, besides her family knows. Well, one person knew, until Alison disappeared, and took Spencer's past with her. It's the one thing that kept Alison on top, the fact that she knew so much.

The truth is, Spencer was off the rails. Melissa was always the golden child, always number one, and Spencer couldn't handle it. It lead to her skipping school most of her freshman year, with Gabby. Gabby, her best friend and sometimes more than friend who took her to the junkyard and smoked weed with her and made love to her, then left her on her own. Over and over again.

Gabby who she fell in love with, who didn't return the feelings. Gabby who ran away to the nearest guy once Spencer got too close.

Spencer got her heartbroken, then she got careless. She got high alone in her room, which is where her parents found her, a sobbing mess who was more than happy to confess everything.

Spencer was pulled out of school, weeks before summer vacation, and the Hastings' moved to Rosewood.

The first summer, Spencer was kept under lock and key, to avoid bad influence whilst her parents worked harder than ever to try and clean up her life. She likes to think it's because they cared about her, enough to want her to succeed, but she knows that it was all to keep up appearances. It still is.

Within months, slacking, druggie, lesbian Spencer was transformed into studious, hard-working, one hundred percent straight Spencer.

And for the most part, she has actually become that Spencer. She's faking only on the one hundred percent straight part, because she's the complete opposite.

And maybe, without meaning to, she's developed more than friends feelings for Aria, her best friend who really is one hundred percent straight. Spencer had promised to keep up the act until the day she died, but when Aria wears something short or tight or revealing in any way, she has great difficulty doing so.

It gets more intense in the heat of all the A drama, but Spencer refuses to tell Aria. Her parents are already angry at her, and if they found out that she's not actually the perfect daughter they sculpted a year ago, Spencer's life would not be worth living.

She's willing to accept this fact, and live with the constant pain that comes regularly now when she's around Aria. She's fine with this, until the night in the lighthouse. All four girls stay together that night, at Spencer's house, with Hanna and Emily on the couch and Aria and herself in the bed. It dawns on her that night, that somebody tried to kill Emily. And sure, somebody tried to kill her before but that just left her in shock. This makes her realise how easily she could have lost her friend. How easily it could have been any one of them. How easily it could have been Aria.

It's this realisation that makes her turn Aria around in her sleep to face her, that makes her lose all rationality and lean in to press their lips lightly together.

Even if Spencer had been thinking straight up until now, it would all have gone out the window the moment Aria began to kiss back.

People have died, Hanna and Emily are both well shaken up, Spencer's parents are going to hate her, but right now, in this moment, all that matters is Aria's lips on hers.

She'll deal with the repercussions in the morning.

612


End file.
